


Life in Plastic, It's ... Fantastic

by SBG



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Episode Related, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-16 23:47:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4644570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SBG/pseuds/SBG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stuck in a small apartment with someone like Steve would be a challenge on a good day, and Danny is tired. He's so tired.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life in Plastic, It's ... Fantastic

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully soon, you should see a similarly themed fic from annieke, because a while ago we challenged each other to write, tossed a few ideas about and landed on the idea of exploring sex on a plastic-covered sofa ala Barry Burns' innuendo in episode 5.17. I swear, this was meant to be light and fluffy. I don't know what happened! Whoops!Angst.
> 
> I also think this may be slightly on the dub-con side, if you look at it from a certain angle. But not entirely. Just ... please be aware.

Danny hadn’t objected to the plan the way he really should have. It wasn’t even a plan; that was the first thing he should have protested. But he hadn’t. He hadn’t said a word when no one mentioned setting up shifts, that it was left to him and Steve to monitor their little diamond thief from start of investigation to finish. Though it wasn’t against protocol, per se, two people manning a round-the-clock multi-day stakeout wasn’t a great idea. He had figured he was a miserable wreck, though, so why make Chin, Kono and Lou lose sleep when he wasn’t sleeping nine point five nights out of ten anyway. Mistakes, all. If he wasn’t so mentally exhausted, he wouldn’t have made any of them. And that right there was a realization that should have raised about twenty red flags a lot sooner than now.

A detective who couldn’t detect his own level of fatigue or mental impairment was one virtually asking for his own demise. Danny snorted softly. He supposed that wasn’t too far off the mark, really. Leaning heavily against the vanity in Agnes’s gaudy, dated bathroom, hands braced against the edge of the laminate counter, he eyed his reflection. He already looked like death warmed over, compliments of the image of a face he couldn’t scrub from his mind no matter how hard he tried. Work didn’t help, booze didn’t help and was a dangerous path, therapy sure as hell didn’t help. Even Grace couldn’t free him from his demons for more than a few hours at a time, when she was with him reminding him of why he’d killed Marco Reyes. Partly, at least. 

He’d convinced himself that part was justifiable. Elimination of a very real threat against his family was valid. It was. No one he knew would say otherwise. What wasn’t was the greater impetus for the murder, the part that kept him up at night. Danny could backwards engineer his reasoning to try to make himself believe otherwise (square peg, round hole), but in that moment when he’d pulled the trigger his only reason for doing so had been cold, sick rage. Him. The same man who’d fought against Steve playing fast and loose with police procedures five years ago, blinded by grief and anger, taking the law into his own hands. Hands which now shook as he turned on the water. 

Out, damned spot.

He scrubbed his hands with no hope of getting them clean the way he needed. He shook his head, couldn’t let himself get mired in that shit any deeper than he’d gotten already, not with Steve right in his pocket for who knew how much longer. It was hard enough to maintain any kind of balance with the guy around as it was, but he was doing okay with it by focusing on their therapy “homework.” He had to keep it up, hopefully just for a little while more. After a day in this hot, tiny apartment, his skin felt grimy with a film of day-old sweat and pent-up stress, life, _everything_.

Danny set the stopper and let the sink basin fill. What he wouldn’t give for a shower after two days trapped in this sweatbox of an apartment with nothing but his inner turmoil and a perennial itch he needed to scratch. Unlike his partner, though, he didn’t want to take advantage of Agnes’s personal things without permission, and he maybe found the idea of showering in an old lady’s shower a little creepy. He removed his shirt and splashed water under his arms, debating on how much he wanted to spot-clean. Everything. It didn’t take him long to sluice water in all the important places, but putting his dirty clothes back on made the attempt at cleanliness moot. 

“What are you doing in there?” he heard Steve shout. “Getting in touch with your feminine side and taking a bubble bath?”

“You’re funny,” Danny said. 

The smartass commentary was more complicated than Steve knew, considering what had been rolling through Danny’s head. The barb was part and parcel for Steve these days. To Danny it felt like his partner had been going out of his way to be a jerk for months now. It was classic deflection and Danny understood better than most how that tactic fit Steve to a tee, and that understanding made him the prime target for it. He didn’t need a therapist’s manual to figure that out. 

Their professional relationship was fine, always had been. What Danny wanted to work on was their personal one, whatever that was. Purely for selfish reasons, he needed to have it defined. He just … he needed someone to tell him everything was going to be okay and make him believe it. He wanted to believe that more than anything right now. He wasn’t sure right now that person could be Steve, not with the amount of shit he was dealing with himself, and if he could get Steve on an even keel again, maybe then. Maybe they’d both be better off for it. 

Danny left the bathroom and returned to the living space. The apartment still had a lingering funk of microwaved eggs and Indian take-out. He pulled a face.

“All I know is that it’s foul in here and it’s not because of me,” Danny said, heading to the window to open it. “You are a one man eco-hazard.”

He had to hope the small amount of ventilation would help dissipate the smell. He had to be honest, though, it was less about the odor and more about a distraction. He and Steve were a matched set when it came to deflection, and he knew that didn’t give him any leg to stand on when it came right down to it. Theirs had been a push-me/pull-you kind of partnership from day one, something Danny had thrived on even as he protested everything Steve did. Their styles vastly differed, but at the end of the day they in a lot of ways they were the same.

“The body needs fuel,” Steve said.

While it was true that the body did need fuel, in Danny’s case, the type he needed most was sleep. He was finally ready to admit that with every passing day he was edging closer to being a liability and he wouldn’t be able to fake it much longer. He wished he could change the misery of his life and go back to sleeping free of horrific nightmares. Or just sleeping at all. God, he missed Matty. And since his weekend getaway with Am…Melissa, he’d only had one more nightmare added to what was already a macabre mix. He did what he had to do and pushed all that aside. He rolled his eyes at Steve as he sat, but didn’t mention the eggs again, lest it give Steve ideas.

“Anything exciting happen?” Danny asked.

“Not a thing.” Steve stood and stretched, started walking toward the short hall. “I’m going to take your lead. Will you fall asleep if I shut off the light?”

Danny glanced at the clock on the laptop. He guessed it was past the time most normal humans were asleep or … otherwise horizontally occupied. One of the girls let out a particularly loud moan. Sleep was, of course, not going to happen for him.

“No, I will not fall asleep,” he said dully. 

Danny turned the volume up a notch, stared at the darkened screen and closed curtains without real interest. He didn’t think much was going to go down tonight, wished again they had taken shifts. At least if were at home or HQ, he wouldn’t feel like he was hiding a deep secret or something, with no one to witness. If a Danny Williams lost his marbles and no one was there to see it happen, did he really lose his marbles? He snorted out a humorless laugh.

He turned the volume down and picked up the handbook again, surprised at how much it was starting to mean to him while at the same time aware he was using it as a means to concentrate on anything other than his own demons. In no way did he want to delve into his psychology. That was a place much darker than he wanted to admit. The sad fact was that the only person he knew with bigger baggage than himself was Steve. Therefore, he reasoned, it was only natural for him to take something meant to help them both and make it be all about Steve. Yep. He wasn’t twisting everything around to fit the mold he’d come up with at all.

Whatever it was he was doing, focusing on Steve brought another set of issues to the forefront, issues he had lived with for five years. That spark of attraction he’d felt from minute one of meeting Steve had never waned for him. Somehow, probably because that was how Danny’s luck went, even picking at Steve’s flaws had only made him all that more fuckable. Like so many things about Steve, it didn’t make sense and yet was right anyway. The point was that Danny had done it to himself, given himself an unscratchable itch. And here he was, trapped in a small apartment with urges, his angst, exhaustion and boredom. Fortitude-wise, it wasn’t a great mix. He realized he wasn’t reading the booklet and eyes crossed at the words when he tried. He set it aside. It was only helping with the surface problems anyway.

After a few minutes, Steve rejoined him on the plastic-covered sofa, picking a spot on the far end and close to the equipment. Always had to be in control, Danny thought. They sat in relative quiet, the only faint sounds coming from the women having sex. There wasn’t much to say; any titillation either of them had experienced due to the lesbian sexcapades had faded about forty-five minutes in and Danny was tired of picking fights with Steve, so the silence wasn’t unwelcome.

“How long’s it been since you slept?” Steve asked abruptly, his voice seeming loud. “For longer than a few minutes at a time, I mean.”

Startled by the sudden topic and the seriousness of Steve’s tone, Danny considered his reply. He could underplay it. He could flat-out lie. He could make a joke. In the end, the only real way to go was the truth. He’d seen firsthand multiple times in the past day alone how annoying it was to be brushed off. And he couldn’t accuse Steve of burying things if he did the same, at least not if he wanted any credibility. Besides, he knew Steve had to have a decent idea of how long it had been. The question hadn’t come from nowhere, his mention of insomnia yesterday notwithstanding.

“A while,” Danny said.

He realized before the answer was all the way out of his mouth that he sounded almost as cagey as Steve was when it came to the personal stuff despite his intentions. He cringed a little and glanced at his partner blearily, ready to backtrack and give a more upfront answer. When Steve made a noise at the back of his throat and shot him a look loaded with so many other things it left Danny unsettled. 

“Sorry.” Danny cleared his throat. “The truth is that really don’t remember anymore. So, it’s been a while. Everything kind of blends together, you know?” 

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” Steve reverted his attention to the equipment, his voice low, almost disinterested when he spoke again. “You want to talk about why?”

That wasn’t disinterest in Steve’s voice. It was caution. Danny shifted, the plastic sofa making a strange sound as he did so.

“You know why, Steve.”

“But do you want to _talk_ about it?” Steve asked. 

The offer was rare, and finite. Steve didn’t volunteer to talk much … about himself. With a flash of insight (would have been obvious, pre-insomnia; pre-Colombia), Danny understood that this was another example of how they had the same methods to their madness. The degrees were different – Steve clammed up at the thought of sharing the tiniest inkling of his feelings – but both of them clearly understood that it was better to make the other guy deal than themselves. He shook his head, smiled grimly.

“No, actually,” he said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Steve raised his eyebrows, and the snarky comment could almost be seen forming on the tip of his tongue. Ultimately, though, the will to fight had seemed to have depleted from Steve as well and he simply stared at Danny like he’d grown a third head. 

“Wow, never thought I’d see the day. Danny Williams doesn’t want to talk.”

And there it was, feeble but still snark. The corners of Steve’s mouth lifted, but even in the dark, he didn’t look amused. 

“We both know what’s going on in my head.” That was mostly true. Steve couldn’t know the whole thing, not all of it. No one could, or should. Danny twisted his torso a bit and draped his arm across the back of the sofa. “We both also know there’s nothing you can do about it, so why talk about it? It’s on me, not you.”

Even as he said it, he didn’t know why he couldn’t share this burden of his with Steve. All he _wanted_ was for Steve to tell him it would be okay, but now he realized not at the cost of revealing how desperately he needed to do penance for his sins and what exactly that might entail. Okay, it occurred to him that maybe his baggage wasn’t any lighter than Steve’s. Danny wanted to take back what he’d just said, the defensive maneuvering, let everything out. He truly did. He couldn’t.

“Nothing I can…” Steve’s words dropped, thought incomplete but his tone was strangely desolate, unusual for him to sound like that unless it was something really bad and really personal. He pinned his gaze on Danny, intensity shining through despite the dim light. “Maybe I can’t do anything to help, I don’t know. I guess not, if you don’t…” Steve broke off. He swallowed once, as if needing to do so for control, before continuing, “But I do know how long it doesn’t take for lack of sleep to really mess with your head. It’s probably messing with your head already, Danny. You need to sleep.”

Steve was right. Of course he was. Danny nodded, silent. He watched Steve’s expression change, something akin to the looks he got when he was about to unleash a reckless, dangerous plan onto the team. He watched, too, as Steve scooted closer to him, the crinkle and slide of the plastic making the motion seem that much more real. When Steve got all up in his space, then he should have found the will to move. He didn’t. He felt like he was in a fog, or like he was outside of himself.

“I know I need to, but I can’t,” Danny said, not liking the hint of desperation in his voice. “Steve, I can’t.”

“I might be able to help with that part of it, if you’ll let me.” Steve touched him, on the leg at first and then his hand pressed against Danny’s dick. “Can I just try…?” 

Oh, Danny was most definitely in a fog. No way was Steve’s hand where he thought it was, where he’d imagined it being so many times off and on for the last half a decade. It seemed far more likely that he’d fallen asleep and instead of a bad dream, he got fantasy. Except Steve looked at him almost clinically, like he was a test subject. His body didn’t care and wasn’t in the same fog as his brain, apparently, had a reflex time much less sluggish than his brain. He was only human. He reacted to stimulation and need. He did try to pull away as Steve’s fingers deftly removed his button-down shirt, worked the button and zipper of his pants loose. 

“Steve, what’re you doing?”

“This will help. Trust me, it’s a solid method,” Steve murmured. “Please, let me try.”

Danny’s brain kicked in when he was bodily lifted by the hips and his pants were jerked down. His bare ass hit the plastic, a wild thought of how the piece of furniture had its own form of prophylaxis rushed through him. He almost giggled, felt manic with nervous energy. Steve manhandled him until he was on his back. His pants were all the way off now. He was still wearing his socks, his undershirt. It was absurd, not fantasy. What, what, what were they doing?

“Steve,” he said, then moaned as a strong hand wrapped around his length and gave him an exploratory stroke. God, he … this was insane. “What are we doing?’

“It’s a guy helping another guy out,” Steve whispered, his face suddenly in the crook of Danny’s neck, his breath hot. Soft gusts came sporadically, like he was breathless and turned on as well. “That’s all. I’ve got you, if you’ll let me. Stop me if you don’t want this.”

Right. Just sex, Danny thought hazily. His butt slid against the plastic as he bucked into Steve’s fist. Just a hand job between friends. Soft lips pressed against his neck, his jaw. It seemed tender somehow, confused him slightly, but not enough to pull himself away from the pleasure. Sex did tend to get him tired. It all made perfect sense to his overtired, now overstimulated brain. In the distance, he heard feminine moans, their thieves providing a surreal soundtrack.

“Steve, I…” _Sex is natural. Sex is good. Not everybody does it, but everybody should._ Danny was gone, lost in the absurdity, thoughts all over the map, especially when fingers brushed against his balls. No, he should say no, say something other than Steve’s name over and over. “There, that’s … right there is good.”

Steve’s face was pressed into his neck again, Danny felt him smile. Danny didn’t know what this was, not really, yet he couldn’t stop it now if he wanted to. He didn’t want to. It may not be what he’d expected, but it was something. The release of endorphins would ease him, it had in the past, with Mel … he arched into Steve’s touch, all thoughts erased except the one that wondered where Steve had learned to jerk someone off like this. He decided he didn’t care. His body switched to instinctual motion, his hands groping anywhere he could reach, frustrated by the barrier of Steve’s shirt, his pants. 

There wasn’t room to get his hands into Steve’s pants, but Danny yanked at his T-shirt, got it halfway off. Steve’s skin was warm and surprisingly supple. He ran his hands across the expanses of Steve’s broad back, was rewarded with a lick of tongue down his neck, a quick suck against his collarbone. But Steve stopped him from taking the shirt off altogether, diverting his attention with more pointed strokes. It was good. It felt so good, Danny had no choice but to succumb.

Steve kept his right hand moving, tugging against Danny’s dick (lube, lube would help with that) as he painstakingly trailed down the length of Danny’s torso with his mouth. Teeth clamped gently through his undershirt, teased one nipple, then the next.

_“Oh, God!” one of the girls cried out. “Yes!”_

Danny did giggle then, fleetingly, as Steve mouthed his navel and used his left hand to hold his hips in place. The giggle faded into a groan when Steve licked at the inside of his thigh, then swiped his tongue up the length of Danny’s cock. Ohgodohgod, yes. That. Danny was usually very vocal in bed, but he couldn’t seem to get out anything but inarticulate sounds. He couldn’t reach that smooth skin anymore, his hands scrabbling for any contact and landing on Steve’s head. He threaded his fingers through Steve’s hair, which Steve took as encouragement. It was. Danny was in no way shocked to learn that, like with everything else, Steve was exceptionally proficient at sucking cock. Granted, he didn’t have all that much to compare it to, but he knew what felt good and this…

This felt like Steve was in his head and had a line on every trick that got Danny’s rocks off. 

Steve took him deep at almost every pass, not a small feat, spoke of experience. Danny wanted to watch Steve swallow him down again and again, but when his partner swirled his tongue around him somehow amid all of the sucking, he arched his neck until he was looking upside-down at a plate of macadamia nut cookies up close and personal, the oil portrait of Mr. Pickles in the background. His head spun, his hands clutched spasmodically at Steve’s hair as his balls tightened. He almost choked as Steve simultaneously made a sound deep in his throat, the vibration rocketing straight into his dick, and gingerly caressed Danny’s balls. 

He didn’t have the forethought to warn Steve before his orgasm hit. It was too rapid, explosive, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever stop coming. Steve’s mouth still warm and wet stayed around him, sucking everything out of him, torturing him with it. Danny went limp, vaguely aware that the plastic beneath his ass and legs was slick with sweat. He’d worry about cleaning that up, but lethargy hit him only seconds after the last spasm of climax ended. He hummed at the way Steve kept lapping at him, both pleasured and pained by it, and he sighed when that moist heat was withdrawn. 

Danny couldn’t make himself budge an inch beyond shifting to his side. Even when he felt Steve re-dress him, at least partially, with more care than Danny had thought Steve capable of. He had to wonder exactly what else Steve was capable of that he hadn’t let himself consider. A large, rough hand touched against the side of his face, then ran through his hair until fingers cupped the back of his head.

“Mmm, thanks,” Danny mumbled, words slurring. He meant to say more. So much more. This was … he didn’t know. “Were right.”

“I’ve got you, Danny,” Steve said, barely a whisper but close. So close. Steve’s lips pressed against his, a slight hint of tongue. Lips still on Danny’s, he continued, “I always will.”

Automatically, Danny opened his mouth. He was sleepy, too sleepy for all of his cylinders to be firing. Still, he inherently sensed there was genuine feeling behind the kiss, the way Steve kept it unhurried and sweet. It was as if every feeling Steve had for him was in it, none of the frenetic energy they'd had minutes ago, just tenderness even his sex-sleepy mind could discern. He tasted his own come and a trace of toothpaste in Steve’s mouth, wanted to keep this moment forever. The peace that it gave him, anyway, with no room for contention in his messed-up head or from his obstinate partner. He hummed again, slipped into sleep between one swipe of Steve’s tongue against his and the next. 

It could have been ten minutes or two hours when consciousness came knocking. 

Danny took stock before he opened his eyes, made sure he knew where he was. He was hoping for home, in his own bed, but the faint smell of old lady dashed that idea before it was half-formed. One of Agnes’s afghans was draped over him. He opened his eyes, saw Steve, stalwart and still on the far end of the sofa. Oh, god. They’d…

“I fell asleep,” he said stupidly, his heart racing. He wasn’t sure if he’d been dreaming. He remembered the feel of Steve smiling against his neck, the excruciating pleasure of his partner’s mouth getting him off. He turned, noticed his fly was undone. Oh, that had happened. “Did I miss anything?”

He didn’t know what he expected. Some sort of acknowledgement, maybe, of what they’d just done together. His palms were sweaty, an inkling of foreboding running through him at the way Steve’s expression looked. Set, blank. Instead of answering him, Steve mutely leaned and turned up the volume on the equipment. Danny must not have been out that long, if the women were still going at it. His heart sank, because of that and because he knew Steve. Whether or not Steve shared any details, Danny knew how to read him. 

And so he knew the sex hadn’t actually happened, not for Steve. Not in the way Danny had, even briefly, wished. He realized with stark clarity that they wouldn’t be talking about this thing, that he’d read something that Steve hadn’t meant into the kiss at the end, that it wasn’t Steve’s dysfunctional way of letting Danny know it was more than a friendly assist. It had probably been his own sex-stupid brain at work anyway.

“Apparently not,” Danny said, hearing himself dimly.

“They stopped for a water break about half an hour ago,” Steve said, no eye contact, no real inflection in his voice to give anything away.

Fine. That was fine. It was okay. Danny told himself he knew how to play this. Situation normal: all fucked up. That was apparently the way Steve liked it. His mind reeled, and he knew he was knee-jerking, but he had to consider Steve’s lifelong MO of keeping everything that mattered bottled up. Wrapped in plastic like the goddamned sofa they sat on, insides visible to anyone who bothered to look, but protected. Impenetrable. So much for making progress. So much for his own sleep and sex addled misinterpretation of events. 

Danny took a breath. He knew the best offense was sometimes defense. Too often, he had to employ that technique. He shielded himself the only way he could, told himself he'd read meaning into something that was meaningless and not to make that mistake again.

“That’s good, you gotta stay hydrated,” Danny said, his mouth dry as a bone.


End file.
